- Finding the right Halloween costume is supposed to be fun, right? But that’s not always the case.
- You want to look your best for the office party or make sure your kid loves her trick-or-treating getup, but lacking the luxury of time and facing the reality of price can make the whole costume shopping experience a fright.
- Amazon is our top pick for online Halloween costume shopping because of the vastness of options available and the competitive pricing.
- You can also check out our guide to the best baby Halloween costumes and the best pumpkin carving kits.
Back in 2011, my wife and I were invited to an epic Halloween party hosted by a well-known actress. We decided to go with a couples’ costume, and soon hit on the perfect choice: Mario and Luigi. Over the course of a week or two, we procured baggy overalls at a thrift shop, fake mustaches from a costume store, and a red M and green L hat online. Bright T-shirts, white gloves, and the controllers from my original 1980s-vintage NES system topped off our ensembles, which, I’m happy to report, went over swimmingly at the event.
Last year, in quite a different phase of life, we spent many hours across multiple nights creating a school bus costume for our then four-year-old son because, of course, he wanted to be a bus. It featured suspenders, lettering, and even a fold-out stop sign.
This year we have an infant and less time than ever, so the homemade costumes are out for now. Ironically, it won’t be hard to find a Halloween outfit for my son, because guess what he wants to go as? Mario. No need to make that one by hand!
If you're committed to finding a great Halloween costume for yourself, your kids, your partner, or your crew, there's no need to run around town from store to store, plying the dusty aisles of those pop-up Halloween shops overloaded with yesteryear's costumes and accessories. Just go online and find the perfect ensemble no matter what your taste, timing, or budget may be.
We've broken things down by category and retailer so you can save even more time looking for the best Halloween costumes and spend even more time tricking and/or treating. Or doing your job or getting groceries or whatever you need to do this October.
Here are the best places to buy Halloween costumes:
- Best Halloween costumes overall: Amazon
- Best Halloween costumes for kids: Nordstrom
- Best cheap Halloween costumes: Walmart
- Best Halloween costumes for families: Target
- Best custom Halloween costumes: Etsy
Updated on 10/11/2019 by Malarie Gokey: Updated prices and formatting. Added links to other Halloween buying guides.
The best Halloween costumes overall
This is Amazon, people ... if you can't find the Halloween costume you're looking for here, it's either a custom-made one-off or something you dreamed up yourself.
To demonstrate the primacy of Amazon when it comes to Halloween costume options, I tried punching specific terms into its search bar. First I went with "Halloween costumes for men," which returned more than 70,000 results. Then I tried "Halloween costumes for dogs." That netted more than 4,000 results.
Next, I took a cue from the website's own auto-fill search terms and tried "Halloween costumes for women plus size," and that came back with more than 9,000 hits. Though I did notice a men's Captain Hook-style getup in there, so don't take these figures as precise or anything.
You can search by category on Amazon's Halloween Shop page. Categories include women's men's, kid's, superheroes, classic, pop culture, and more.
You go to Amazon to buy staples, toilet paper, snacks, televisions, calendars, and basically everything else ever produced by humankind, so of course, it's also a great place to shop for Halloween costumes.
The site's layout is crisp and clean, with each costume easy to review quickly thanks to images and descriptive titles displayed on the search results page, and in more detail when you click on one that catches your eye. Perhaps best of all about the Amazon Halloween costume shopping experience is the plethora of commentary left by previous customers, who rate and review past purchases for the benefit of later shoppers.
If more than 900 people have given a DC Comics Deluxe Batgirl Adult Costume an overall four-star-plus rating, then you can probably trust it. And potentially even more valuable are the low rated, oft-criticized options that you should strike from consideration.
On the other hand, shopping for costumes from Amazon can be overwhelming if you don't have a starting point idea, and there are always potential quality issues as the company so often acts as a broker between third parties.
A writer from Reviewed called Amazon a great place to shop for Halloween costumes thanks to the range of selection, but especially because of "last-minute costume" options available via "free two-day shipping" with Prime.
Pros: Vast selection, multiple categories, good prices
Cons: Occasional quality issues
Shop for all sorts of Halloween costumes on Amazon at all sorts of prices
The best Halloween costumes for kids
While Nordstrom might not have the largest selection of Halloween costumes for kids, the catalog it does offer includes only well-made products from trusted brands.
Retailers like Walmart, Target, and Amazon dwarf Nordstrom's selection of kids' Halloween costumes in terms of magnitude, but for the parents who put quality over quantity, this is the place to shop.
The company only sells Halloween costumes from a few brands, including Melissa & Doug, Baby Aspen, and Lovelane, to name a few, but every kids' costume and accessory you'll find on Nordstrom's site is reliably well-made. Looking through the site, I couldn't find any of the options with less than a four-star rating, and most enjoyed full five-star status.
You'll spend a bit more on a kid's costume from Nordstrom, but with the price comes an outfit that's actually comfortable for your child and that will last for several trick-or-treating sessions, so a sibling, other relative, or friend of the family could make use of the same ensemble in some later October.
You will also appreciate the decidedly classy selection on hand. There's not a hint of sexuality in any of the costumes, nor are any of them gratuitously violent in nature. Unless you consider a charming pirate or ninja costume violent.
And finally, with the exception of a few clearly female-centric costumes, like a princess outfit or a stylist's costume complete with pink vests and headbands, almost every children's Halloween costume sold by Nordstrom is refreshingly gender neutral.
All that said, the selection is indeed limited, so you might have to look elsewhere for junior's Halloween gear even if you do value quality.
Pros: High-quality costumes, trusted brand names, great ratings from past customers
Cons: Limited selection, higher price point
Shop all high-quality kids' Halloween costumes at Nordstrom
The best cheap Halloween costumes
At the end of the day, as it were, Halloween is just a single day, so why spend an arm and a leg on your costume? Walmart's prices are so low you can easily justify the disposable nature of a single-use Halloween outfit.
Most of the many costumes for sale from Walmart cost between $20 and $30, fine pricing considering the large selection that's spread across many categories in terms of age, gender, and theme.
But of even more note is the large number of costumes for sale from Walmart priced under $20. In fact, the company even sells a number of costumes for less than ten bucks. So if you're on a tight budget or you simply don't want to spend a lot of cash on a costume that you or your kid will wear for all of a single afternoon, Walmart is your go-to place.
In addition to all the affordable Halloween costumes you'll find available on Walmart's site, there is also a great selection of low-cost costume accessories. From wizard's wands to funny hats to capes to wigs and more, you can find plenty of cheap accessory items that might just be the grace note to your Halloween accouterment.
And if you're on a budget and running out of time to find a Halloween costume, you'll appreciate the fact that many options from Walmart are available with fast two-day shipping. Or of course you could always haul yourself to the actual store, but I thought we were trying to avoid that here in the modern era.
A piece from Finder prominently featured Walmart when discussing ways to "make your dollars go the distance" when shopping for Halloween costumes.
Pros: Great low prices, large selection of accessories, fast shipping on many products
Cons: With cheap prices comes cheap quality
Shop for low-cost Halloween costumes at Walmart
The best family Halloween costumes
If you're looking to have the whole family rock Halloween together in matching or related outfits, Target is the place to shop.
I freely admit that I often wait until my son's clothes are picked then choose my own to match or at least compliment his, something he will probably loathe in a few years' time. Oh well.
When it comes to Halloween costumes, I'm happy to report that the whole family is going with a Super Mario Brothers theme. Nerdy? Yes. Awesome? Oh, I think so. And as it just so happens, Target has a great Super Mario Brothers Costume Collection, complete with outfits for kids and adults, mustaches, hats, and more.
Don't worry if classic Nintendo themed costumes aren't your sartorial go-to, Target sells a broad range of costume collections. They have costumes inspired by the Star Wars movies, Super Hero collections, pirate outfits for the whole family, and so much more.
Many of the costumes from Target are priced low enough that you won't hesitate to suit up the entire clan in matching outfits, limited use though they'll get.
Target makes the Halloween costume shopping experience easy whether you're looking for family costumes or not. You can search by men's, girls', baby, pets' and more, and each category accurately filters out inapplicable results.
Pros: Great collection options, easy search experience, wide variety
Cons: Items are often sold out or available in limited numbers
Shop for family Halloween costumes at Target
The best custom Halloween costumes
If you want a truly unique, vintage, or handmade Halloween costume, Etsy is the site for you. There, you can connect with artists and sellers of unique goods alike.
If you just can't find the perfect Halloween costume for sale from some big box shop, then perhaps you should consider commissioning a custom costume made by an artisan you find on Etsy.
In the picture above, Pokiplay's hand-crafted Halloween masks are pictured. We like their simplicity, eerie look, and obvious quality. You can tell these masks were made carefully with great skill.
Beyond the masks above, Etsy can connect you to hundreds of skilled craftsmen and craftswomen who can fashion just about any outfit you dream up ... for a price. Etsy is hardly the cheapest way to shop for Halloween costumes, but it's one of the best ways to get an original getup.
Also, you don't need to have a brand new, original costume fabricated to stand out this season. There are countless sellers on Etsy offering readymade Halloween costumes that can ship the same day you order them, many of which are handmade, totally unique, and sure to catch the attention of the other folks at the Halloween party, parade, or trick-or-treat excursion.
From frightful masks to charming kids' costumes to accessories from the sexy to the spooky to the weird to the wonderful, you'll find just about any Halloween costume you could want on Etsy. And if you don't you'll find an artist you can commission to make it for you from scratch. Just for a price is all.
Pros: Custom costume options, supports small businesses and individual artists, unique and vintage costumes available
Cons: Often quite expensive